While no holiday can ever compete with my love of (or perhaps more accurately, my fanaticism about) Christmas, today I find myself wistfully musing on Thanksgivings past. While Christmas captures my love of wonder and magic, Thanksgiving conjures up longings for family.
Thanksgiving began, in the Crites household, well before that long-awaited Thursday. Dad (who did all the cooking in our home) would bake a dozen or so pies from scratch the days before—cherry, pumpkin, pecan, and my favorite, vanilla cake pie (think of a custard pie without the eggy consistency)—my niece and I would have a yearly battle for the last piece of that delicacy.
He would wake up early to get the turkey going, followed by ham, mashed potatoes, and gravy. There probably were some vegetables (I suspect green bean casserole)—but my childish mind blocked those out. And cheese. Every meal needs cheese.
After dinner was over and before football began on TV, my brothers and I would head to the backyard for the Turkey Bowl, our annual football game, a tradition that we would continue well into the years when our adult kids would join us. Mom always objected to us playing. Actually, she was nearly frantic, certain that we would get in a fight (which we always did) that would ruin Thanksgiving (it never did). Or that someone would get hurt. (I actually did end up in the hospital one Thanksgiving when my faster-than-lightning brother caught up to me with a ferocious tackle just when my hands caught—and dropped—a pass from another brother.)
All of this was to change.
In the early 1990s, my wife, daughter, and I moved from the woodlands of southern Ohio to the prairies of North Dakota—a place with different traditions, different foods, and different accents. Visiting our families on Thanksgiving no longer was an option. It was too expensive, on my pastor’s salary, to fly back to Ohio, and way too far to drive in my aging Mazda. Thus, Thanksgiving became a decidedly quieter and lonelier (albeit safer) holiday in a land that was already frozen solid by the end of November…no Turkey Bowls in the backyard.
We seldom celebrated Thanksgiving in Ohio again. The family traditions, so cherished, faded away.
Why do I bring this up? Am I trying to make you feel sorry for me? No. The decisions my family made were right, though at times difficult.
My reason for writing is simply this: it strikes me that each one of the refugees and immigrants whom we serve has a history, a set of memories, and in many cases, a family they left behind. They have come to a land where people eat different foods, speak different languages, and have different traditions.
Our new neighbors tell us that a huge obstacle they face is not simply learning English, as difficult as that may be. It is not just learning to navigate public transportation, although that can be very challenging! It is not even the discouragement of taking a job for which they might have been utterly overqualified in their homeland, though that frustration ranks right up there.
It is isolation. It is a sense of being exiled from the familiar, and not yet belonging in a new place that may be safer, but that has not yet become home. In all too many cases, it is seeing the sidelong glances of people in public places who are not sure they like someone of your language, your religion, or your ethnicity in their neighborhood.
Studies have shown that isolation can have significant impact on one’s physical, emotional, and cognitive health. Imagine how these symptoms might be compounded in those persons whose isolation is caused by living in a completely different culture.
So, this Thanksgiving when you bow your heads in thankfulness to a Creator who has provided you with so much, will you ask God to bless the refugee, for Scripture declares that they are dear to the heart of God? Pray for their provision, their protection, and their well-being. Pray that they may find welcome and connection in a new land. And if you are willing, pray that God would show you some way in which you might help bring a blessing to the hearts of those who are starting over on this Thanksgiving Day.
About the Author
Garry Crites is an ordained minister within the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference. After many years in the pastorate, he returned to grad school and received a PhD in Early and Medieval Church History from Duke University. He is currently the Church and Community Engagement Manager at World Relief Durham, a Christian refugee resettlement agency.
